The invention relates to means for transporting headers of combines or other harvesting machines and, more particularly, to provision of towable vehicle for endwise transport of headers and the like.
The size of harvesters continues to increase and already there are header sizes in common use too wide to be transported conveniently when carried in their normal operating position on the combine or other harvesting machine. However, the overall length, from front to rear of fully assembled headers, generally still offers an acceptable transport width if the header is transported endwise.
It is known to provide special purpose trailers for particular types of headers but such special or single purpose devices tend to be economically unattractive. General purpose implement trailers are also expensive and not always conveniently adaptable to header transport and especially handling of the wider platforms (30 feet and more) now coming into use.
Adoption of wider platforms has intensified the need for transport means other than the harvester itself, but of course transport of all sizes of headers independently of the harvester is often desirable. Logistically the need may arise because, as is common, an operator has two or more types of header available for his basic machine and sometimes these need to be moved as a harvesting unit, from farm to farm for example, or a header may need to be moved to a repair shop.